VIDEO: Boeing's Albaugh on KC-X contract award timing

Hopes of a KC-X contract award in February -- raised only yesterday by EADS North America chief executive Sean O'Keefe -- were quickly dampened. Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley invoked an inscrutable phrase to describe the current timing of the KC-135 replacement. After remarks at an Air Force Association breakfast, Donley told reporters the KC-X source selection process is "moving toward completion", but offered no date or timeframe at all. A few hours later, Boeing Commercial Airplanes president Jim Albaugh told reporters: "I'm not holding my breath." When told that O'Keefe had predicted a contract signing in February, Albaugh replied: "Whatever decision is made is one that is going to undergo a lot of scrutiny, and if I were to hazard a guess on a date I would say later rather than sooner."